In Jharkhand, the number of positive cases has gone up to 203, after 22 Corona patients were confirmed in a day late last night from five districts Hazaribagh, Palamu, Ranchi, Koderma and East Singhbhum of the state, confirmed state Health Secretary Dr Nitin Madan Kulkarni. In the wake of rising number of Corona cases, Chief Minister Hemant Soren has called a meeting of all his Cabinet Ministers today at CM’s residence.

The number of Corona positive cases are rising in the hotspot area of Ranchi district after the number of cases detected has crossed the century mark in the Red Zone containment area. Meanwhile, the recovery of patients in Jharkhand have shown a positive graph, as a total number of 89 patients have won the battle against COVID-19. At the same time, positive number of cases are mostly detected among the thousands of stranded and migrant labourers returning to their homes from severely affected zones.

Meanwhile, in Rajasthan, 55 people tested positive for COVID-19 in the state today taking the number of active patients to 1,881. In all, 2,646 patients have recovered so far. Today, 29 cases have been reported from Kota, 11 from Jaipur and nine persons tested positive in Udaipur. Udaipur has emerged a new hotspot for COVID- 19 where the number of the active cases has gone up to 313. Total 125 persons have lost their lives due to Corona infection so far.

The reports say that the number of infected persons has suddenly increased in the last four days after the movement of migrants in the state.

The other news update in Maharashtra, two infants were among 51 COVID-19 patients who recovered from the deadly infection at Kalyan taluka in Thane district. A one- month-old baby girl and a two-month-old baby boy were discharged from different hospitals, following their recovery.

On the other hand, even as several congested areas in Pune city turned into COVID-19 hotspots, slum pocket of Janata Vasahat has managed to fight the virus with coordinated efforts of its residents and authorities. The locality has only reported two cases of COVID-19 so far and the Pune Municipal Corporation plans to keep it that way. Pune Municipal Commissioner Shekhar Gaikwad attributed the success of controlling the spread to containment measures undertaken by the civic body.

Meanwhile, in a major step towards rapid mass production of the Medical Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) developed by the Indian Navy, a patent has been successfully filed by the Intellectual Property Facilitation Cell (IPFC) of Ministry of Defence, in association with National Research Development Corporation (NRDC).

A report confirmes that a Doctor of Indian Navy, posted at the recently created Innovation Cell at Institute of Naval Medicine Mumbai, have developed a low-cost PPE. This is made of a special fabric which affords high level of protection along with high ‘breathability’ as against other PPEs available in the market. Therefore, this is more suitable for use in hot and humid weather conditions as prevalent in India. The technology has also been tested and validated by ICMR approved Testing Lab.

Concerted efforts are now going on by a core team of Navy, IPFC and NRDC to commence mass production of this low-cost PPE. Eligible firms are being identified by NRDC for taking up licensed production of the PPEs on a fast track.